Senior Seminar. As I mentioned in class, I think Samuel Butler’s treatment of religion in Erewhon makes for pretty thin satiric gruel and might as well have been left out of the book altogether. I think he gets a lot more mileage out of the “Birth Formulae” and “World of the Unborn” chapters. As is so often the case — especially in the brilliant “Book of the Machines” chapters — Butler manages to be both satirical and prescient at the same time. In this passage, for instance, Butler prefigures a key element in the political philosopher John Rawls’ influential theory of “justice as fairness”:First, [the unborn] must take a potion which will destroy their memory and sense of identity; they must go into the world helpless, and without a will of their own; they must draw lots for their dispositions before they go, and take them, such as they are, for better or worse — neither are they to be allowed any choice in the matter of the body which they so much desire; they are simply allotted by chance, and without appeal, to two people whom it is their business to find and pester until they adopt them. Who these are to be, whether rich or poor, kind or unkind, healthy or diseased, there is no knowing; they have, in fact, to entrust themselves for many years to the care of those for whose good constitution and good sense they have no sort of guarantee.
As part of his theory of justice, Rawls concocted a now-famous thought-experiment which asks us to imagine ourselves being born into the world from an Original Position, in which we view our future condition behind a “veil of ignorance” that prevents us from knowing whether we’ll be white, black, or brown, male or female, gay or straight, etc. It is from this original position that we should create the social contract under which we all should live.
Your question: what do you see as some of the philosophical implications of Butler’s parody in these chapters? Does Butler’s treatment of Erewhonian beliefs about the unborn help us figure out whether the book is an anti-utopia?
Tuesday, February 24
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3 comments:
I feel like the Erewhonian beliefs of the unborn is not anti-Utopian because it does not seem like a Utopia; the whole idea seems dystopic, actually. It looks bad, and it is bad. Butler repeatedly forced the view that the people in the unborn world were told they would not enjoy the life they would have in Erewhon, and if people at age forty had the choice to be born, they would choose to stay in the world of the unborn. The babies are unwanted and pinched for coming to pester the parents. Erewhon is filled with ridiculous practices, and I feel like it is no Utopia, or Anti-Utopia.
Snoopy
butlers view of birth and sex goes nicely with the premise that human beings have an essence which supersede existence. it is not to say that is beilf has the faintest effect on me the reader(just me personally) i do not belive that this book is hardly utopian by the very fact that it is a satire it not ment to be taken seriously
rob
For whatever reason, this is a hard question to answer. I guess I would say that the beliefs of the unborn still give a choice. They can choose to give up their identity and chance on whatever life is doled out to them. I guess this parodies the idea that the unborn are really not unborn at all, that they have at least the ability of choice to give up an already claimed identity. But I don't think that these theories of the unborn help proclaim whether this is or isn't an anti-utopia. I think whatever the society may be, utopia, anti-utopia, dystopia--whatever--these are just theories of the unknown. I guess I just feel like the chapter of the unborn is less of a political satire on the society in which it is commenting and more of a theory on reincarnation.
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